Thank you again for the question.
I think this is a really important issue to underline, noting that some previous witnesses have highlighted that they feel like the tribunal could add process and time. It's not entirely clear to me whether all the witnesses had the opportunity to be fully briefed on the functioning of the proposed bill on the idea of two elements in particular: first, that the tribunal would be required to provide deference to the commissioner's findings and, second, that the decisions could not be appealed. Those two pieces in concert provide a significant backstop against abuse of process, against processes being unduly extended and against multiple levels of appeal. As I pointed out earlier, it really centres and puts the spotlight on the Privacy Commissioner.
I cannot imagine a scenario in which any company with a reasonable amount of legal advice would rather go to a tribunal that has to pay deference to the commissioner versus this other approach, which apparently is going to a court and starting de novo. Any lawyer worth their salt advising a company would say they'd rather take their chances starting fresh at court and see if they can convince the court to see it differently versus, “You've got a tribunal in place that's going to pay deference to the commissioner's findings? Boy, your chances are a lot lower in that circumstance.”
On this notion that has come up a few times in the committee that somehow the tribunal slows things down and companies will be more motivated to go to the tribunal and less motivated to work with the Privacy Commissioner, I would have to say that represents a significant misunderstanding of the functioning of the bill.